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#13 JRV, your post deserves to go viral, reach as much of the population of the USA as possible and be put before Obama and Biden for their serious consideration.
You are spot on.
The principles of President Obama are apparent when noting that he positively quotes Reagan more than FDR, HST, JFK, and LBJ combined. As soon as Obama appointed Geithner, Summers, and some other Wall Street cronies to his first administration, it was obvious that he would not be another FDR.
Do you think it is possible that President Obama may have been planning to get tougher this week with the Republicans, but may be feeling that it might be best to wait a week for our national mourning to finish it's necessary processes, before appearing confrotational in this matter? I guess we will find out next week, either way.
I call him "caveman" or "Alley Oop" (a variation on the cave-man idea). For a few weeks it looked like he might be quitting those caving ways, but it seems like he's back to his old, spineless ways. At least I don't feel like I was fooled. I have the luxury of living in a state that is not a swing state and I voted third party.
JRV your plan has my full support.
Indeed
I think Obama is only thinking about his legacy - just as Reagan was known as "The Great Communicator", Obama wants to be the "Great Compromiser". At any cost. Unfortunately, he will only be remembered as "The Great Sell-Out".
As the crazies call for more guns everywhere and armed insurrection, my response is: bring it!
For too long many have used the 2nd Amendment lie as cover for their greed. Gun proliferation is about MONEY. As with so many issues of our day, the fight against Oligarchy / Plutocracy is a fight worth having. It is a fight we will win if we each just do a tiny little bit.
Alright! Fantastic! Finally! ...that Hartmann is now telling it like it is...(now that Obama won, of course). And I won't even say..."I told you so!" Obama is starting to change colors...chameleon-like (no racist pun intended). He hides beneath the rock, comes out and makes a lot of bravado statements in support of the majority and then, zappo, scurries back under his rock and reneges on his position. He'll never really stand up to the Republicans. I was totally hoping I would be totally wrong. But, nope, he's at it again...can't we all just...get along...I got it...let's compromise with the uncompromisers...again! Well, at least, I didn't get suckered into voting for him again this last time. Maybe I'll put that on my tombstone! Maybe too many others will have to put on their tombstones "Would like to have stayed a while longer...but I voted for Obama and not Jill Stein". And, of course, it's not just Obama..it's the damn Democrat party itself....a smoke and mirrors sellout to the American people. They're all corporatists! Republicans...Democrats...doesn't matter...same, same! Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
So, if the Democrats sell us out to the Republicans again does that mean that, come the 2014 election, formerly voting Democrats will repeat their previous actions and stay home in protest of the sellout of their representatives. And the Republicans take back all the power again? Almost like it was all planned from the beginning. After all, the ruling elite controls both Republican and Democrats...all they want is to fool the people long enough to defuse any built up notions of exploding into making a scene. Smoke and mirrors!
It's a little bit difficult to vote as the alternatives are stated: that is, both are true.
Obama should pull the cuts from the deal, and theoretically there is no reason he couldn't.
But in fact, the GOP will hold him to those cuts and more.
So I reluctantly vote "yes," reflecting not what I want, not what I think should happen, but what I know will happen.
I think some of us have a well founded lack of faith in the ability of the police to adequately protect us from a clear and present danger. There are simply not enough incidents that occur to warrant the expense of maintaining a reponse rapid enough, and a force proactive enough, to prevent the victimization of any particular individual at the hands of a person unconcerned with the laws in effect at the time. So while we can cite statistics that demonstrate very long odds that a person would ever need an assault weapon or a 15 round magazine in a handgun for the kinds of risks they are most likely to face, you are still proposing that a person give over what they perceive as a capacity to defend themselves to a solution that they correctly perceive as unable to do so in the moment.
So the task you have is to identify the pros and cons of people owning various forms of weaponry, and the likely outcomes based on statistics and facts. Annecdotes are not helpful, but scenarios are. Scenarios provide insight into the thought process and allow you to compile data and provide statistics about that scenario occuring and its most likely outcomes.
When people see a mismatch between their perception of the effect of owning a given form of weapon, and the practices they are willing to follow in possessing and using it against the actual data regarding the outcomes, they may find that certain concessions to public safety are more reasonable. You need data, and you need insight into the motivations of people who choose to purchase and hold firearms for the full range of reasons they may have, before you can hope to persuade them to give up such a fundamental right or freedom.
Isn't god the one who reached out and took the children in the first place? If you believe in religinous nonscence.
In the wake of the Connecticut tragidy the scum are coming out of the woodwork. The number 1 scum is the media. They will make money hand over fist. They will suck out every drop of money that could be sucked. If they could show the bodies of the young victoms and get away with it they would.
The people that really get me pissed off the most are the anti gun groups. They are LOVING this. They will use the tragidy to further there cause. But how can we blame this inadament object? Do we blame the knife when it is used to kill?
In China guns are illegal!
School attacks in China (2010–2011)
On March 23, 2010, Zheng Minsheng (郑民生)41, murdered eight children with a knife in an elementary school in Nanping,
April 2010
Hongfu Primary School knife-wielding man named Chen Kangbing wounded 16 students and a teacher
May 2010
An attacker named Wu Huanming (吴环明), 48, killed seven children and two adults and injured 11 other persons with a cleaver at a kindergarten in Hanzhong
August 2010
On 4 August 2010, 26-year-old Fang Jiantang (方建堂) slashed more than 20 children and staff with a 60 cm knife, killing 3 children and 1 teacher, at a kindergarten in Zibo
September 2011
In September 2011, a young girl and three adults taking their children to nursery school were killed in Gongyi,Henan by 30-year-old Wang Hongbin with an axe. Another child and an adult were seriously wounded but survived. The suspect is a local farmer who is suspected of being mentally ill.[
This is just a few examples of killer wanting to kill.
So what is the problem? Well we know a few things. Number one the mentally ill have to be helped and not ignored! They need to be kept away from dangerous things.
Number two, the news media must not make them bigger then life. They make them more popular then God. In there demented minds bad publicity is as good as good.
Number three, Schools, a place where we keep our most precious resources, must have security. GUYS WITH GUNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pete
And, Aliceinwonderland, I agree with you...you're right...our puny little weapons are not any match for what our Fascist regime has. And I, for one, will most likely remain part of the herd that will continue to be "full of fury...signifying nothing". I am certainly not crazy enough...or brave enough..or foolish enough..or young enough to do anything stupid on my own or even in a small cabal. It takes a multitude of those kinds of people, well armed, to make any real difference. And I don't even have any assault weapons, myself, although I hear for $600 one can buy an AK47, illegally, on the streets. (Goes to show that even if you made them illegal...they can still be bought).
Unless, from the outset, we were ALL heavily armed with assault weapons and that, in itself, would be a psychological threat enough to stave off any totalitarian impulses against us, we really wouldn't stand a chance...or would we? Vietnam kicked our butts out of Vietnam....Afghanistan will eventually kick our butts out of there eventually...all it cost us was thousands of our soldiers lives and mucho big bucks from the tax payers.
Without guns, I guess we're all just going to have to resign ourselves to a slow demise through bad health, disease, and starvation so that a few at the top can buy ever larger estates, yachts the size of battleships, and have magnificent balls to flatter one another in their faux magnanimities.
Perhaps, what the world really needs is a world dictator or king..one who enslaves every single human being on earth to do exactly what he/she wants. The whole world would have to give up all their weapons to this one dictator...this dictator would have satellite stations that would monitor every home and business in the world..even read the very thoughts that people had...and would have lasers or particle beam weapons that would zap into oblivion anyone who uttered a wayward thought..... We could call that space based system....God.
....then maybe we could all live in peace. And the really creepy thing is that some people would actually think this was a good idea. Merry X-mas everyone! Oh, not Dec 25th yet? Excuse me....but isn't that really a Pagan date? But, I digress....... . . . .zap! ouch!
You're right.
But you need remedial social media 101.
1. Your tweets won't fit in 140 characters.
2. Your titles are desperately vague and boring.
Keep it short, sweet, and concise if you ever want to get tweeted. Completely eliminate the long, unnecessay byline that uses up most of your 140 characters. Or reduce it to "-TH" at most.
Do you think that would have worked against Hitler? Do you think that would have worked against the US in Afghanistan or Iraq? Do you think that works in Israel? Who wants to be the first lamb to the slaughter to be a martyr for the rest of the herd who will all stand back and distance themselves when their name is called? Who will be the first line of suckers to take the rubber bullets or, perhaps, later, real ones? Remember Kent State? Do we even remember the names of those 4 killed or 9 others who were wounded by the National Guard for simply protesting against the US invasion of Cambodia? Remember Rachel Corrie who stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza Strip?
Palindromedary- There is nothing in your reply that I disagree with. But I still stand by my assertion that our puny litte weapons are no match for the greatest terrorist organization in the world: The U.S. Government! - Aliceinwonderland
Republicans evidently did NOT GET THE MESSAGE. The citizens of the U.S. ARE in favor of raising rates on the wealthy. They are in favor of cuts to military spending. They ARE NOT in favor of what Boehner is proposing, and the President absolutely SHOULD NOT CAVE! We TRUSTED him just as he asked us to do. Now it's time to repay us for that trust.
And this would be even more so the case the more we citizens give up the assault weapons, wouldn't it? And that's just the way they want to keep it. That's the real reason why they are behind most of the propaganda to get us to give up our weapons.
Perhaps we really need to be moving in the opposite direction...every citizen be just as well armed as our military. We would then not only outnumber them but we would outgun them as well. This very reality would be more than adequate to put some future Hitler wannabe down even before it started. This very reality would prevent the very possibility of a totalitarian regime from even forming in the first place...and in the event it did...would make them think twice about being too dictatorial and sending out their guns to force us all into submission.
Look at how much trouble the US has had in countries we have illegally invaded and occupied from people willing to fight back; and, if they had better weapons they could have kicked our butts out of their country a long time ago.
As it is, fighting with what little they have (compared to the high tech war we have been conduction against them) we will eventually, like in Vietnam, give up and go back home and attempt to invent yet another false history in an attempt to cover up losing.
But the people that really lost were the common people in both their countries (losing their families and infrastructure) and our country (losing the lives of our soldiers and our tax dollars to the Pentagon geeks). The Military Industrial Complex made out very well...in a way...they won those wars. But we, the people, lost.
Well, nobody's perfect in everyone else's minds. And even I recognize the fact that I may not be right in everything all the time. But, I've got to say that there are those who believe that all they have to do is trust in a higher power (of government anyway) to keep us safe and forget about the history of Nazi Germany, etal. They too believed in their higher powers of government and many Germans, then, believed that they lived in such a modern and sane world that such massive criminal behavior would never happen.
But, according to author Edwin Black, many people did learn about the concentration camps and by that time their propagandized minds found it all acceptable. It was necessary, they believed, for the survival of their country. It started in small increments that ratcheted up to too late to do anything about it or risk going to the gas chambers themselves. Do not make the same mistake the Germans did...believing the people that run the system are going to to act in your best interests when they have already, so many times, demonstrated just the opposite.
The root causes of the Germany's aggression and assent in what their leaders were doing (the holocaust and in attacking other countries) need to be looked at. I won't go into any at length here because I am not a historian but I'd say that the rise of Hitler and the German aggression leading to WW2, and after, had an awful lot to do with WW1, the strict reparations the German people had to pay, bankster manipulations, Churchill's manipulations and deceptions, and an underlying antisemitism. Propaganda by Hitler and Goebbels was used more effectively than ever before because of their use of broadcast radio and audio amplification.
Antisemitism is ever as much alive in the US as it was in Nazi Germany (Arabs are Semitic people too, you know.) It was the predominant Christian hatred of the Jews for having betrayed Christ (as the story came to be modified by later Church fathers). Muslims are also villainized for so many other reasons by Christians and since the west had to go to Muslim countries for their oil... that attached a lot of other anti-Arab sentiments as well. Conniving western powers, if they couldn't steal it outright (like they tried to do in Iran and other places eventually installing a puppet regime--the Shah Pahlavi dictator), then they would threaten "carpets of bombs" if they couldn't buy them off with "carpets of gold". It took another "Pearl Harbor" to sufficiently frighten Americans to accept the "carpet of bombs"...so they created one on 911.
So, do you really believe that a ruling regime, such as we have here in the US--
1.that uses a corrupt political system of a pretend democracy [a corrupt two party system]
2. that owns most of the media spewing propaganda
3. that lords over an economic system bent on our eventual destruction
4. that a system of healthcare where only the top few wealthy people have it but others will die of lack of it or starvation
5. that a system where the banksters and Wall Street and corporations have steadily squeezed many of us into poverty
--will really "protect" us?
If our government was so intent on protecting us from those few who occasionally go off the deep end then perhaps they shouldn't be selling weapons to Mexican Drug Lords. Maybe they should set a good example and not send soldiers out to murder people because we want to control the oil. Our US military has murdered way more civilians and children than any of these lone gunmen. Yet our country praises the "brave heroes" that are compelled to do it by a corrupt, lying, government run by the Military Industrial Complex. "Truth? You can't handle the truth!" And I am not referring to you, specifically, Aliceinwonderland, I'm just using Jack Nicholson's quote from that movie "A Few Good Men" some years ago. I mostly agree with everything you have said...except on the issue of gun control. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."-Thomas Jefferson
And finally, more people die in car accidents every year than all of the lone nut gunmen have caused and we don't hear from many people that we should ban cars. The overall benefit outweighs the few that are sacrificed. However, some people believe we should ban motor vehicles...most people would think them just a little bit crazy. So too is it with guns. But the problem with the argument that they are only trying to ban assault weapons...that no one should have them...or at least make them undergo stringent psychological tests limiting ownership by only those who pass the tests is that first they will go after the assault weapons, then they will go after all guns.
The other problem is that just who would it be to determine who passes the psychological tests? That reminds me of a cartoon I saw showing a big building with a sign on it saying "mental asylum" and through the windows you see all these people reading bibles. So, are the sane people, to be decided by the government, all deemed so because they all have drank the cool aid that says that the government is good...the government is there to protect you? And if you have any ill feelings toward anyone in the top economic stratum of our country...ie: the ruling elite..then you are crazy and not fit to own guns? How convenient...to ban guns on the basis of a government that is controlled by the ruling elite.
I believe that if we take as model the Australian plan we can achieve some control. Let's not be naive to believe that NRA, lobbyists and politicians are going to do anything, they are hooked like drug addicts in favors they owe corporations and the like. We also need to get rid of toxic members of the Supreme Court!
Just remember the II amendment is in the Bill of Rights not the bill of needs. If you want to change that you have to go through the constitutional amendment process. I don't think that will happen even today. Do not give the dictator Obama and his liberal cronies any idea that this is what needs to be done. They will use this situation to politicize the control agenda. Pali is right On this one.
I don't know what it is with the current governement ..current since Clinton..that they want to totally dismantle the New Deal....the only set of laws put in place by any president that put this country on track as a whole. Or even the banksters...since more general prosperity helps their bottom line as well. If what I heard on Bill Moyers is correct, and Obama persues these cuts, he will likely leave a legacy as one of the worst presidents. Unfortunately it could be many years before another African American will be elected due to the mistrust Obama will leave in his wake as a major sell-out. We need to go over the so-called cliff and go from there.
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!
I will also confirm your perspective on Assault Rifles; as a former Soldier in the U.S. Army I can attest that there is ABSOLUTLY no reason for any civilian to own such a weapon. During my trainning I handled and fired Assault Riffles (fully automatic). You could empty an entire magazine (100 rounds or more) in a matter of seconds...And you are correct you don't always have to aim...Just squeeze and spray!
Though semi automatic, the guns used in the latest two masacres are truely WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!
Initially I was wholly ticked off, but as the news is unfolding it looks as though the Republicans are unwilling to accept the deal. So when we go over the cliff they are going to look even worse. Anyway I am hopeful. It makes no sense that the cost of patching the hole in our budget should be born by those who for 30 years have gained the least. It must be born by those who reaped the benefits of Reaganomics.